The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 19, 1924, Page 4

eee sreerecremmremes meen THE DAILY WORKER. Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO., 1118 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, Ill. (Phone: Monroe 4712) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mait: $3.50... yi months $2.00....8 months By mall (in Chicago onty): $8.00 per year $4.50....6 months $2.50....8 montus LE eA aE ARES SSE SEEN Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1113 W. Washington Bivd. Chicago, IHinols — J. LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE a ettaes MORITZ J. LOEB... Business Manager $6.00 per year ——$—$—$—————————————— Entered as second-class mai! Sept. 21, 1928 at the Post- Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. i 250 Advertising rates on application. ——————haBi— SSO ——X——= The Times Is Worried | It is not often that the New York Times allows : the world to know that its serenity is disturbed by any outward prospect. Its imperturbability, its sangfroid, its calm self-possession in the face of the most difficult situations, have long been one of its distinguishing characteristics in the family of the capitalist kept-press. But the Times is worried. It betrays its agita- tion, nay, it admits that it is disturbed. What is the cause of this unusual condition? Here is the situation. The Times is very much afraid that Foster and the Communists made a great mistake in putting a ticket in the field against LaFollette. In an editorial, issue of July 17th, it expresses this fear, ‘that the vote for the Communist candidates next November will be so ‘ small (about 5,000 or so, they indicate) that Com- oe rade Foster will lose casté in American politics. The Times, however, takes a constructive’ and helpful attitude toward the Communists. It would be very wise, {t suggests, for Foster and Gitlow to withdraw from the campaign in favor of La¥Fol- lette. By merging with the LaFollette camp-fol- lowers, the idea goes, the Communists will be able to hide their weakness. Like a real good-fellow, the Zimes passes this suggestion out with no thought of reward or recognition for its service. Many thanks, Times! We appreciate the solici- tude shown for the welfare of the Communist move- Gir ment in America. It touches us to know that our : fortunes are followed so sympathetically in the id editorial sanctums of Park Row and Times Square. But really you know, old top, we are quite willing to have a count made of all the qualified voters of America who are sufficiently developed to es- cape the influence of LaFolletteism. It is mot so important that the vote should be millions at this ¥ moment. That will come, that will come. And : may we suggest that you also, Times’-editors, sort of realize this too? Wilkerson on the Job Federal Judge Wilkerson, the same who issued the infamons injunction against the striking shop- men in 1922 at the behest of Harry Daugherty, has come forth with another injunction that car- ries the practice of court interference in labor dis- putes even further than any judicial despot has } dared before. “ On’the plea of the Western Union Telegraph Company, one of the worst anti-union corperations in the country, and one that is tied up very close- fy with the highest financial circles, Wilkerson issued a restraining order against the Electrical Workers, the Bricklayers and Plasterers, the Stone Workers, the Plumbers and Steamfitters, the Hle- yator Constructors, and the Strugtural Iron Work- ers, forbidding the union or the individual mem- bers from quitting work on the Illinois Trust building now under construction. The order pro- hibits striking or threatening to strike, prohibits individuals quitting, and declares that it.is even a crime to accept a job if there is any intention of later quitting for any reason not approved by the court. Trade unionists must begi nto realize that a real fight is necessary against this injunction mania | that is sweeping the land. The usurped pwer of ‘ the courts is even more immediately intolerable than the usual and established use of the capital- ist government against the working class. In the case of injunctions there is but one immediate remedy—mass disobediance which is counseled even by euch arch-reactionaries as Gompers. The final solution is the establishment of working class. courts by a -worlsing class government. “Not a Single Concession” Roger Babson, expert adviser to big business ii on political and economic problems, shrewdly i comments that LoFollette has made “not a single { ¥ 4 aati concession” to the labor and radical elements whom he is dragging in his train. This fact is now being underscored’ by the very probably selection of Senator Wheeler, of Montana, f as the running mate of LaFollette. While it is | quite true, as it will probably be said, that Wheel- er cannot be much less representative of a true labor spirit than would George Berry, the strike- breaking American Legionist, it is still of great significance that Berry was the choice of the union bureaucrats and that LaFollette has so completely lashed them to his chariot that on this, too, he could flout their wishes as on every issue that has hitherto arisen. When Wheeler is named it will be another item added to the mountain of evidence that the LaFol- Jette personal candidacy has not the slightest tendency toward the building of a semblance of pabor per: It is the labor party’s most dead- No Gains for Famers If the newspaper claims are valid evidence, then prosperity is here on all fours for the farmers. The recent rise in price of wheat and corn on the exchange is being heralded everywhere as proof of the fact that the farmers have at last gotten out of the acute depression that has been their lot for the last five years. Nothing of the sert is true. No fundamental change has occurred in the status of the farming masses of the country. The temporary flurry in the price of corn and wheat is occasioned by tem- porary conditions and can at best bring only fleet- ing relief, small and limited in character. The American wheat market has been somewhat bouyed up of late because of a decrease in the acreage, a cold late spring and a drought in South- ern Europe. According to the department of agri- culture estimates the crops of the Northern hemis- phere, exclusive of Soviet Russia, will be ten per cent less than last year. Then, drought has done considerable damage to the Canadian crop. Great stretches of the Canadian wheat crop are damaged fifty per cent beyond recovery. The official Cana- dian wheat estimates for the year have been changed from a minimum of 474,000,000 bushels to a maximum of 318,000,000. In the United States proper there is an out- look of an average decline of six per cent in crop production per acre below the figure for the past ten years. West of the Rockies crops are very poor. In Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri crops are ten per cent below their usual yield. The cool weather in the central corn belt, after a cold May everywhere east of the Rockies, has brought about a decline of nearly fifteen per cent in the corn yield. In most of the Western states the continued drouth and shortage of water for irri- gation is raising havoc with the corn crop. The conditions in Indiana and Ohio are likewise ad- verse. The gloomy crop news will bring no cheer to the farming masses of the country. First and fore- most, how can the farmers join in sharing in the price advance if their crops are decreasing in quantity and they will have no crops to sell? Sec- ondly, natural adversities of the sort wheat and corn are now experiencing are only of temporary duration. Thirdly, whatever crops the farmers do have on hand to dispose of have been mainly sold in advance to meet taxation bills, mortgages, in- terest payments, and bankers’ notes. Consequent- ly, it is the grain gamblers, the big capitalist spec- ulators who will reap the greatest benefits of the sensational rise of corn and wheat. The basic causes for agricultural depression are untouched. LaFolletie’s Angel In America politics every aspiring servant of the employing class, every believer in and sup porter of the capitalist system has his financial backers who sell him to the people. These finan- cial god-builders are called, in the parlance of politics, “angels.” Every president of the United States who has lived in the White House for the last three de- cades has had his political “angel.” Some were even fortunate enough to have a whole heaven of “angels.” Cleveland had his political columns plastered with the gold of the House of Morgan thru his membership in the law-firm serving this fimancial dynasty. McKinley was giver his con- firmation papers in the “proper cireles” thru the graces of Mark Hanna. Wilson was guided by Thomas W. Lamont of J. P. Morgan and Company. The wires between the Stock Exchange and the White House were continually kept warm in the days of Harding. Coolidge-has the Tremont Street Boston banker Stearns and Wall Street financial overlord Dwight W. Morrow of Morgan’s firm as his political “angels.” And now Mr. LaFollette, the terrible trust- buster, comes forward with his political “angel,” with his multimillionaire supporter. This is none other than the millionaire sugar magnate from San Franciseo, Rudolph Spreckles, who invested so heavily in the Roosevelt flare-up of 1912. Mr. Spreckles is a member of the Bankers Clu of New York, the President of the First Federal Trust Company, the Real Property Investment Corporation, the Realty and Rebuilding Corpora- tion, the San Christina Investment Corporation and the vice-president of the Universal Electric and Gas Company of San Francisco. For years Mr. Spreckles was president of the Hawaiian Com- mercial and Sugar Company having huge sugar plantations in Hawaii where the working condi- tions are unspeakable. It is no accident that’ Mr. Spreckles who is one of the most powerful capitalist figures on the Pacific Coast should now seek to invest some of his surplus funds created for him by the thousands of workers he exploited directly and indirectly. My. Spreckles has been that type of capitalist who has for years been trying to purify capitalism, trying to save, the present system of exploitation and oppression by making it more “honest,” by removing graft, corruption and other evils. The Teapot Dome revelations and the Daugherty ex- posures are a monument to his hopeless cause of purification. That is precisely LaFollette’s mission. LaFol- lette, like his multi-millionaire supporter Spreck- les, is interested in perpetuating the capitalist system. Henry Ford, so it is reported, is sending a large and handsome photograph of Coolidge to each of his 20,000 Ford dealers, with the request that it be conspicuously displayed. Not such poor busi- 1ess, at that. offort and.expense, sebibcrmamscenr ns neni RUSSIA aR 1924 == =6 Ss By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER eukttied tronse from Last Issue.) I saw two demonstrations while in Moscow this last trip which were illustrative that the revolutionary fire is still burn- ing brightly, hostile critics to the contrary, nothwithstanding. The first was on Easter morning. This was a great holiday in old Russia. The celebration this year began at midnight, and although it was already late in April, a full foot of snow fell in the evening. The whole town became alive, the old folks going to church and the young ones demonstrating against the whole religious mummery. I visited many churches and found in them only mere handful of old human relics of former times, except in the case of the cathedral, which was the rallying point of both sides in the demonstration. It was packed, mostly with curiosity seekers. The youth marched through the city, boys and girls together, gaily singing revo- lutionary and anti-religious songs. They made not the slight- est interference, however, with anyone who cared to celebrate in the old manner. The Russian church is in a bad fix, moral- ly, financially, and every other way. The sins of its long be- trayal of the people into the hands of the Czars are coming back upon its own head with a vengeance. Its priests are lean and poverty striken, for comparatively few are foolish enough to voluntarily feed them. I have seen them begging on the streets ,and one I saw marching between two soldiers arrested for common thievery. That seemed a curious sight and I was interested to see how the people would take it. But I saw no one show the slightest sympathy as the culprit was taken away. The churches are bedraggled and run down at the heel. Doubtless many of them will be eliminated in the next few years as public nuisances, for the Russian clericals had the habit of building their churches so as to block the most strategic points in the city. It seems as though they wanted to stick their religion right into the teeth of the people. The revolutignary proletariat is not in a mood to suffer such need- less blocking of the city’s life streams. Before many years, no doubt, Moscow’s famous 40 times 40 churches will be con- siderably reduced, not to speak of what will happen in other cities. The Easter celebration this year was a brilliant ex- ample of the revolutionary spirit of the Russian proletriat. The other demonstration that impressed me was on May Day. This was a tremendous outpouring of the workers. It seemed as though all Moscow was there. ‘For a full eight hours the living stream of humanity poured through the Red Square. From 500,000 to 700,000 were in line. Never until I saw this great demonstration on Labor’s international holi- day, did I really comprehend the meaning of the term “the masses”. It was overwhelming. The whole affair fairly flamed with revolutionary meaning. Those who are foolish enough to believe that the revolutionary spirit of the Russian workers has died down, are due for a rude awakening if they depend much upon their assumption. I was enthralled by the demon- stration. The most striking thing ajout the celebration was the boundless enthusiasm of the marchers. Nothing could kill it. How they roared out the revolutionary slogans, always ending with the lustly Russian “Hurra”. During most of the parade a driving rain prevailed. But it did not dampen the spirit of the workers, much less break up the procession. I pictured to myself what would have happened to an American parade in such a storm; it would have gone to pieces in 10 minutes. But the sturdy Russians were undismayed by the cold rain. They stood in it and marched in it for hours apparently ob- livious to all hardships. Not 2% of them left the line. The masses were out to celebrate the great day of the working class, and a storm or two, more or less, could not hold them back. The great parade was made up of every conceivable unit of the workers, their wives, and their children. There were trade unions, factory groups, Red Army units, schools, uni- yersities, athletic societies, Party branches, and a score of other formations. All marched together in one great fraternal demonstration past the mausgfeum of the dead genius of the revolution, Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin. There were tens of thou: sands of children, some so small that they were shable te keep the pace of the main body and had to march on one side. Multitudes of women were in line. There were a thou- sand interesting characters, men carrying their children pick- a-back, war cripples struggling along on crutches, old patri- archial looking peasants, who somehow found themselves in town and in the demonstration. One man I met I will never forget. He was a Red Army officer, a Cossack 82 years old. He seemed to express the very soul of the heroic revolution. Many years ago he belonged to the Czar’s army and while there killed a tyrannical officer. For this he spent 35 years in Siberian exile. He was there when the revolution began. Immediately he joined the revolutionary army and he has stayed with it ever since. During the campaign against Kol- chak he was decorated twice for bravery. And there he stood for eight hours reviewing the parade, a patriarch in age but young in spirit and body. Straight as an arrow and as lithe as a man one-third his age, he braved the driving, chilling rain without a thought that he, was undergoing a hardship that would kill an ordinary mar of his age. There must have been 10,000 great flaming red silk banners in the ° parade, and at least 1,000 bands, for every group has its own band. In 1921, I saw several big demonstrations of the work- ers, but they were nothing like this. The masses then were starving and lifeless. But this great May parade was an outpouring of the healthy, vigorous, buoyant, consciously vic- torious proletariat. One would have thought that its\ tre- mendous enthusiasm would have relieved the workers’ surplus spirits for months to come, hut, so full of revolutionary vim are the latter, thgt, a week or two later, a similar monster demonstration took place in protest against the raid upon the Soviet Embassy in Berlin by the German authorities. (To Be Continued Tomorrow) Second Installment of Report by Zinoviev CHAPTER 1 Four Congresses of the Comintern Firet Congress Gea First Congress took place at a moment when the rejoicing over the victory of the Russian Revolution was still fresh, and when the defeat and the significance of the Spartacus rising in Germany was still not clear to us. The first inaugural congress passed without any great internal struggle. As far as I remember, we had only one disagréement; it was over the question as to whether the International should be established at that congress. The representative of the German Communist Party was against its immediate establishment. During the Second Congress we al- ready had a clear and definite strug- gle of tendencies. We began the fight first of all against the right. You will remember the twenty-one points which were to be the bulwark against cen- trism. Already at that time Lenin and the comrades who supported him were obliged to carry on a struggle even against the “left,” on the ques- tion of parliamentarism. A section of the comrades took sides against mak- ing use of parliament, and among hem was Comrade Bordiga. Second Congress Further, at the Second Congress there was a struggle over the question of the trade unions. Some American (the late John Reed) and German comrades demanded the withdrawal from the social-democratic trade unions, and Comrade Lenin carried on a stern struggle from his side on this subject. There was also a struggle at the Second Congress against the Communist Party of Germany. Sev- eral “ultra-left” syndicalists declared: “We do not need a party, at least not until after the revolution.” Thus, already at the Second Con- gress we had the struggle against the centrists, and struggles no less vigor- ous against the so-called extreme left; and these struggles were led by Com- radé Lenin. There were also differ- ences of opinions on the questions as to whether the English comrades should affiliate to the Labor Party. You will remember that many ¢om- rades were opposed to this course— not only the English. Thus, for in- stance, Comrade Wynkoop, who is with us today, on that occasion fought like a lion against the English communists joining the Labor Party, He regarded {t as opportunism. Well, time passes and men change. Nowadays, Com- rade Wynkoop is accused of other digressions, not towards the left. We later to what extent the justified. All this shows, , that the struggle of ten- dencies within the Communist Inter- Muscle Shoals is worth even more | national from the beginning has been * 6 semana Third Congress The third stage is the Third World- Congress. “You will remember the struggle against the se-called theory of the offensive, after the March rising in Germany. That was represented as a fight against revolutionary tenden- cies. As a matter of fact, it was not a fight against the “lefts,” but against “left digressions.” This struggle was also carried on by Lenin, and Fepre- seuts one of the most important mo- ments in the history of the Communist International. An equally severe struggle was being conducted at that time against Levi (who was expelled at the. Third Congress), against the opportunist tendencies of the then) Italian movement; but at the same time there was also a struggle against Terracini, Bordiga, and against sev- eral comrades who are now on the so-called extreme left}, We may say that, at the Third Congress, Comrade Lenin defeated in advance the present political position of Comrade Bordiga. Fourth Congress Finally there was the Fourth Con- gress. The Fourth Congress is still in your memories and I need not dwell on its work in detail. The slogan of the “workers’ government” was adopt- ed, the tactics of the united front were approved, and at the same time the Rome “left” theses of the Italians, with which we shall yet have to deal here, were severely criticized and Ye- jected. You thus see, comrades, that from the beginning the Communist International, in order to remain Marxian, or Leninist—as we should say —has carried on the severest struggles against the centrists and opportunists, and at the same time has fought back the extreme left digressions, There are, comrades, not bad revolu- tionaries who often reproach us in the following manner: “The Executive fights now against’ the right, now against the left, which indicates an absence of principle; it should be firmly decided once and for all in which direction we are to fight, so that we shall.not fight today the “right” and tomorrow against the “left.” Of course, the best way to fight against the so-called ultra-left digres- sion is by combatting the real oppor- tunist mistakes and errors of the right. (Hear; Hear!) Complete Leninism But comrades, the very opposite fre- quently is true, Therefore, we cannot be said to be lacking in principles be- cause we combat also the ultra-left digressions; jhould rather be taken as tho very nce of Marxism. What f someone came along am a Marxian, I accept Marxism, but I draw the line at the things which Marx wrote against Proudhonism,” which, as you know, was also an gfe 8 “lett” Siaression rene combatting Proudhonism is not Marx- ism at all. Now, comrades, this applies also with regard to Leninism. I know some good comrades who say: “Yes, every- thing that Lenin has written is excel- lent, but his book on ‘Infantile Sick- ness’ is not quite correct; it was, per- haps, a slight digression towards the ‘right’ on the part of Lenin; for there axe no ‘infantile sicknesses’ in the Communist International to speak of. If we are children at all, then we are prodigies who do not suffer from in-| fantile sickness.” Comrades, we must see clearly the things which lie behind such ideas. Leninism, without the idea developed by Lenin in his “Infantile Sickness” ceases to be Leninism. This should be seen quite clearly, and the comrade who would support Leninism without the ideas developed in his book on “Infantile Sickness” reminds me of the French peasant at the time of the FrenchyRevolution who is reported to have @xclaimed: “Long live the king, but without the salt duty!” (Vive le Roi, sans la gabelle!) Comrades, we need complete Lenin- ism, without reservations including “gabelle” (i. e. unsparing criticism even of “left” digressions). We follow the old way which Lenin has taught us, and which is by no means, “un- principled.” We must not regard things from the petty bourgeoisie viewpoint and argue that, because to- day we have to combat the “right,” and tomorrow the so-called “ultra- left,” therefore we have no principle. Imagine for a moment, that we are steering a warship to a definite desti- nation, Our route lies thru a mine field, of which we have not the plan. The mines are scattered both to your right and to your left. We have to steer our ship cldar of these mines. |» Would you accuse the captain in charge of not having a principle be- cause he steers now to the right and now to the left in order to reach his destination? I mention this because there are good “left” comrades, like Bordiga, who quite honestly prefer such charges against us, declaring that the Comintern has ceased to have a principle, because it now fights the “right” and now against the It should be pointed out that the same things are said by our opponents in the Second International. I have briefly reviewed the past his- tory of the Communist International, in order that we might all see that Leninism, not only when it is contined to Russia, but when it became inter- national thru the Communist Interna- tional, has always directed its blows principally against the “right,” against “centrists,” and against the survivals of social-democracy in our own ranks. But, in order to do the work success- by Marx in his fight against the Proudhonist tendency, by combattt the so-called ultra-left tendencies which we regard as petty-bourgeois. Therefore we will continue our course, whatever may be said about us, and in spite of the outcry about our alleged lack of principle. This. is the applica- ion of the tactics of Marxism, and con- sequently of Leninism, in the’present conditions. What Comrade Lenin Has Taught. At this juncture I would like to quote a passage from one of the most brilliant articles comrade Lenin ever wrote from his article, “The impor- tance of gold before and after the es- tablishment of socialism,” which I con- sider to be one of the most important revolutionary contributions of Lenin. In this article he says: “The supreme danger, and per haps the only danger, to a true revo- lutionary is to exaggerate the revo- lutionary situation, as well as to for- get about the limits and conditions for the appropriate and successful application of revolutionary meth- ods. True revolutionaries have fre- quently come to grief by writing the word revolution in large letters, and by making a fetish of ‘Revolution,’ thus losing their heads and the abil- ity to weigh the circumstances calm- ly and soberly, and to discriminate between the moment when one has to act in a revolutionary manner and the moment in which one has to pro- ceed in a reformist fashion. | “True revolutionaries will certain- ly go under (not as a result of ex ternal defeat, but as a result of the internal collapse of their cause) if they lose their sang-frold and im- agine that the ‘great,’ victorious world revolution can and must solve — all problems in all circumstances of time and place, exclusively in the | revolutionary manner.” Comrade Bordiga, I regret to say, has not yet arrived here, but to com- rade Rosi, who shares his opinions, I would recommend to read these words) twice daily,'at least during his stay in Moscow. He would greatly boneat} by it. (Applause.) ‘Thus, in orfer to wage a correct and’ successful fight against the right tend- encies, which are still prevalent in’ our movement, we must remember,' the things which our great teacher and leader has taught us in the past, both when Bolshevism was yet con- fined to Russia, and when it became’ an international movement. ‘We shall now deal with the™ period betweon the Fourth and Fifth World Congresses, which was marked_ by very heated debates among the various tendencies, I shall try to indicate the more important questions of principle with which we had to deal during this period. i (To. Be Continued. Temorrew)